


More to Hold You With (aka the IDEK 'verse)

by lousy_science



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 11:31:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lousy_science/pseuds/lousy_science
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Un-beta'd, crackity crack, seriously AU. So, you may remember the pictures of three-armed Zach (as used to brilliant effect <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_startrek/231845.html?thread=20088485#t20088485">here</a>). Somehow my brain would not give up forcing me to write this AU about college drop-out Chris meeting a hot guy at his coffee shop. Who has an extra limb. </p>
            </blockquote>





	More to Hold You With (aka the IDEK 'verse)

Chris noticed his eyes first. Dark, soft, even under those clunky glasses and some pretty intense eyebrows, they stood out. They belonged to a guy waiting in Chris’s line for coffee. As a barista of many years experience Chris could tell you, there were many ways to stand in a line. You had your huffers, for instance, who liked to remind themselves how far too busy they were for this bullshit by hunching up to fill up every spare inch between them and the person in front. There were the It’s Early, Please Don’t Fuck With Me tribe, who appeared at all hours of the day and seemed to barely possess the strength to stand upright and order at once. Tremblers, mutterers, the despised loud cell talkers, may God drop them where they stand if they kept the conversation going while Chris served them. The iPhone show-offs, the daydreamers, and the newly dating couples. This guy was standing there patiently, not leaning on anything, not totally zoned out or whispering to himself, giving off the air of a man enjoying the wait for his beverage, confident that it will be served in due course and with no pressing need to do anything but drink it.

Chris snuck looks as he was working though the line of customers at the till. His eye candy was dressed in a striped t shirt and a heavy denim coat, a book or something tucked under it. Maybe it was a laptop, plenty of students came in here, though this guy would be a mature student or in grad school. Or maybe even an academic, though he lacked the requisite air of tension.  
“Soya cappuccino, please.”  
“Hey. Uh, sure.”  
That voice matched the eyes, which were so disconcertingly soft. Chris hadn’t realised the line would move so quick, that his sly ogling would get cut short. Damn his own efficiency.  
“You sitting in or out? I’ll bring it over.”  
It wasn’t until the guy reached to grab his wallet that Chris noticed it. Not a laptop under his jacket, at all. Another arm. In a grey and purple sleeve.

Chris grew up with the PB, post-Boom, generation. Lots of people hated that term, but everyone more or less got resigned to the fact that the accidental detonation of not one but several nuclear devices, intended for underwater mining, thirty years ago was widely known as The Boom. The effects on the Pacific coast were immediate, and the outrage over the damage to the marine life persists. But what no one knew for sure was what would happen to the children of the Boom. In the following years birth defect rates shot up 500%. The WHO issued reports, special pre-natal clinics were established, and the court cases dragged on.

For Chris, the Boom was part of popular culture, bad taste jokes, and history books. It’s after effects were represented in his mind by Brian Morris and Phuong Thuyen, the two students at his school with VP – visible, physical effects. Mutations, the word that the educational videos and posters at school warned them was not to be used, was a word Brian embraced. He threw it around, and the nickname “mutt”, in class and out, and no adult could ever convince him to quit it. He was a red haired kid (“Another genetic anomaly, man, you think I can go for another court settlement?”) with port stains across his face, and a cleft nose that split in a wavy line across his face, like someone had mashed a fork over him and stranded his nostril two inches away from where it was meant to be. Brian was funny, but not just that. He was incredibly likeable and sharp. He became a bit of a rock star at school, whereas Phuong kept a lower profile.

Once an over-earnest teacher, as part of a discussion on myth, pointed out to the class that her name meant ‘Phoenix’. “The Phoenix was a bird that rose out of fire, you must know the story, would you like to tell the class about it?”  
Chris was nine, and can still summon up the skin crawling feeling of embarrassment on Phuong’s behalf when the teacher started badgering her. It was the moment he understood what his Dad’s phrase about the road to hell being paved with good intentions meant.

Phuong had a stub of a leg which grew just out of her hipbone. Other kids sometimes joked about brushing up against it and feeling tingles, made cracks about reserving her the biggest seat in class. Girls gossiped that she had another ear growing at the base of her neck, and dared the crueller boys to flick at her bobbed hair to expose it. She was quiet, always speaking in a breathy whisper. Chris never figured out whether it she was because she was shy or if her vocal chords were affected, too.

They were both advanced at math and in seventh grade sat together in Mrs. Forman’s geometry class. Chris remembers desperately angling for a look down his teacher’s blouse, where something he’d been assured was ‘the promised land’ awaited, when Phuong shifted in her seat and her stub brushed him. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but it was the first time he’d popped a boner in class.

Years later, he was at his cousin Harry’s house where he got introduced to the world of internet porn. One of the first things Harry pulled up was VP-porn shots, for laughs more than anything, because Harry was nothing if not an unrepentant asshole.  
“Part of your computer education, kid. Look at this one, this guy’s got two-”  
“Harry! Stop it, your mom is going to walk in here and get us arrested.”  
“Uptight virgin. Unclench, there’s a whole wicked world online.”

Chris was not naïve; he’d heard the jokes and rumours about VP smut. And he was sixteen, he had a typical, if not healthy, interest in porn. He spent a couple of dark months getting a bit too interested, racking up huge bills on his parent’s crappy dial-up connection. Worrying about the state of his wrists as much as his sexuality. It was all so confusing, still, and he knew he was a late bloomer. He hadn’t had much interest from girls or boys to try turn all this new theory into practice. Eventually he joined a neighbourhood softball team to get more exercise and bulk up, and found out that his teammate Adrian Mills was up for exploring their mutual bases. Between spending all his free time playing softball or grappling with Adrian on his skinny single bed, Chris reassured himself that he was more or less alright, not too perverse to function.

Late nights in his college apartment, sometimes he reached into those teen memories for spank material. Sometimes he still worried at his own tastes. He thoroughly objectified several Paralympians, but then told himself that he’d always liked jocks since that developmental phase with Adrian. The PB generation were getting better at working out the social complexities in the wake of The Boom, but there were still terrible stereotypes and prejudices about VP and NVA (not visible but affected, a nebulous term that was meant to cover people with no obvious physical effects, but internal or other conditions). The terms VP and NVA were getting deconstructed and challenged, and Chris has stopped using them. He keeps reading about the civil rights movement, the Boom social experience, the blog network and the political leaders, to give him a better understanding. And, if he’s honest with himself, a clearer conscience.

He’d never dated anyone with a physical disability. He moved out of California to New England for college, where the Boom had left less of an impact on the population. Part of him was worried, where did the attraction for a person and the fetishization begin and end? But it was all just thoughts, so far. Chris was getting better at working through his negative ones to get to the useful ones, a result of having had a shitty year in which his dreams had been ground to dust. He was thinking this through while cleaning up at the coffee maker, at the same time assessing the rhythm and tempo of the café.

It was never of a question of whether he’d approach this guy. Once Chris saw him pull out a battered paperback copy of John Fante’s Ask the Dust, he was signed, sealed, and delivered. Chris just wanted to get the timing right. He’d noted that the guy – needed a name other than Cappuccino Table Seven for him – had made a couple of glances his way. That he’d given Chris a slow smile when he brought over his drink, that he’d said thank you three times.

He got his break at 3.15. It was a lull in the day, and the Fante reader had put the book down to stare out the window. Chris pulled his apron off and casually strolled over.  
Those eyes flicked up to him. There was a go ahead there, Chris could swear.  
“Hi, I’m Chris.”  
“I know.”  
“Name badge, right? Advantage you. I have a break now, wondered if you could stand some company for ten minutes.”  
The eyes never left Chris’s face, a smile – a new one, how many did this guy have? – began to emerge. “I’m Zach. And it would be my pleasure.”  
Chris sat. “I love this book. You reading it for the first time?”  
“Mmm-hmmm, I bought it at a jumble sale a few years back and never got around to it, somehow. But it’s wonderful, I can already think of people I’m going to force it on.”  
“I have forced that book on so many people, you have no idea. That copy is probably one I bought for someone.”  
“And maybe now I have it? That’s a nice thought.”  
Chris smiled back, let a beat pass. “So, do you live around here?”  
“Yes, have for what, six months now? I work from home mostly, and today I was getting claustrophobic, thought I’d get out amongst the people.”  
“What do you do?”  
“I’m a freelance journalist, environment and science topics mostly.”  
“Isn’t that kind of depressing? I mean, the environment, not the freelance – damn, I mean, it’s cool that you’re a writer.”  
He laughed, and it was a wonderful rich sound. Chris felt like marginally less of an idiot after it. “Both can be pretty depressing, but without sounding like a big hippy, it’s my passion. And it’s important, and I try to get people informed and motivated with my work. Not depressed, though I make no promises.”  
“Awesome. I make people wired and jumpy with my work, and their table tops cleaner, you get to change the world.”  
“Hey, you make a great cup of coffee. Coffee is important, and can you imagine what we-” Zach gestured to the patrons of the café “-would be like without it? Plus, you probably make people’s day a hundred times every time you smile at them. Don’t dismiss what you do, Chris.”  
Chris tried to beat down the blood rising to his cheeks, and switched topics. He used my name. Don’t be creepy, now. “What are you working on now? Something big?”  
“Kinda. Well. My book.” Zach rapped the knuckles of his left- far left – hand on the table. Chris wondered if he was trying to indicate his other hand or something, but then realised: he’s knocking on wood.  
“Uh, a book?”  
Zach beamed. “That’s the idea.”  
“What on? Non-fiction?”  
“Yeah, I can’t imagine what I could come up with that would out-wonder the world we live in. It’s another depressing book about the environment.”  
“I’m sorry I said that,”  
“No, don’t be. We all get stressed by it.”  
“What’s it about?”  
“It’s about Mt. Zion, you know, the town just over, and the wildlife there. I did a story on the threat to the bat population – there are these intricate cave systems in the rocks by the river, and the pollution and town sprawl has decimated the bats. There are some types of bats on the endangered species register there, and I was interviewing this amazing woman, Mary Ellen Abt, who is fighting the town planners to get more reserve space. A friend of mine lives in Zion, so I crashed at his place-”  
Christ noted the male pronoun.  
“-while I was researching there. And I was walking back through the town late, after visiting the bat caves, and you can make your own Bruce Wayne joke here,”  
“You both wear glasses. In a lot of the comics, at least, Wayne wears glasses. And you’re both smart.”  
“I meant joke, not comparison, but I appreciate that. Thank you.”  
“Keep going. Please.”  
“OK. Chris. I was walking, it’s not that long, half an hour maybe, out of what feels like total wilderness to the main street. Walked past this late night pizza joint, some guy was staggering out of there on the arm of his girl, he was three sheets to the wind and she looked pissed but resigned. There was some guy by himself sitting in the window of this place, and it was a total dive, you could smell the grease a mile off. This other guy was watching them - watching her, so intensely, a lightening bolt could’ve struck me and he wouldn’t have noticed. And I thought, Nighthawks.”  
“Hopper?”  
“Yeah, obvious idea is obvious, I know, but then I turned the corner and there was this alleyway behind the pizzeria. Rats. Could hear them. Then in front of me, there was this sound like a wave breaking, and this huge flock of pigeons rose up into the sky. They must’ve been disturbed by something, they’d been nesting in this little stand of trees between houses. Between that and the bats, something clicked in my head. Nocturnal creatures - the story of a typical American town at night, via its wildlife.”  
“That is not an obvious idea.”  
“My agent didn’t think so, either. I’ve got an advance to finish the book by May.”  
“And how’s it going?”  
“Not terribly, I mean, painful and torturous, yes, but there’s such a luxury in working on a longer piece, and it took shape really quickly. I geeked out on the research, got to buy infra-red goggles and try them out then write it off on expenses.”  
“That is very Bruce Wayne.”  
Zach laughed at that. “I hadn’t thought so, but thanks. Come to think of it, Mary Ellen has like a utility belt that she wears in the bat caves. It’s a tool belt that she modified herself. She really is an amazing woman, in a better world she’s be a beloved local celebrity and not some crank who writes letters to the Mt. Zion News Chronicle.”  
“Isn’t that paper like, six pages long?”  
“Close. You forgot the coupon pages.” Zach drained his coffee cup. With his far left arm raised, Chris got a better look at his inner limb, hugging his slender torso.  
“I’ve got to get back to work, but thanks - for telling me about the book, your book. And the bats. I’ve been here for three years and know nothing about the local wildlife. It’s kind of embarrassing.”  
“There’s a wildlife sanctuary, The Eaton Estate, only ten miles from here.”  
“Really? I’d love to go,”  
Chris tried to beam all his enthusiasm in the words. Was prepared to hug trees.  
“Well. How about this weekend?”  
Smooth as glass, just putting the invite out there, so assured. Chris noticed the playfulness bubbling in Zach’s eyes.

They swapped numbers, agreed on a meeting time, and Chris put his apron back on. He quickly ran up another cappuccino and zipped back to put it in front of Zach, ducking back before his totally-official-weekend-date-and-crush-object could even say thanks.  
“I saw that, Pine.”  
“Not trying to be subtle here, Saldana.”  
His assistant manager gently belted him with a cleaning rag. “He’s a cute one. Looked like an intense conversation.”  
“He’s a writer. Journalist. Has a book coming out.”  
“A writer, like you?”  
Chris shook his head. “Shh! Don’t let him hear that.”  
“What, Chris, don’t downplay your talent.”  
Chris was, sort of, a poet. He’d had a few things published in tiny literary journals last year, and in theory was working towards a portfolio for an MFA. But considering how he was busting his ass to pay off some of his student loans, he was considering shifting his goals. Problem was, he didn’t know what to.

Karl joined them by the coffee machine. “Chris, you talked to the three-armed dude?”  
Zoe rounded on him before Chris could even respond. “Jesus! He’s sitting right there, way to disparage someone, ass. The guy’s a journalist, and a friend of Chris’s, and you should try and not be such a Neanderthal.”  
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with him! Calm yourself. I mean, I’m envious. Don’t see as many mutt-ahem, differently-abled types here as I did in San Francisco.”  
Zoe was glaring it out, but before she could say anything Chris moved between them towards the till. “Chris’s date, actually, is what he is. This weekend.”  
“Nice work, kid. Find out his story - aaaiah! Zoe, you pinched me? Where’s the caveman love?”

Chris worked six days, seven sometimes, the barista gig, packing stock in a stationery warehouse at nights, with some tutoring on the side. Technically, he was two classes’ worth of credits away from completing his BA. He felt miles away from it. Financially, psychologically, emotionally, he had been worn out. He was beginning to swim to shore, he felt, finishing some more writing, going on runs. He stayed put in Massachusetts, kept his friends close. As Karl would point out, what kind of weirdo knew what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives, anyway?

But Zach did.

They met outside the Eaton Estate at one. Chris had come with two coffees, only to see Zach approaching him grinning, also holding two paper cups.  
“Not the best use of resources, perhaps.”  
“Hello yourself. What did you get me?”  
“One black, one white. What do you get an excellent barista, anyway?”  
Chris couldn’t help himself, Zach was smiling yet another new type of smile, standing so close to him that he could feel the heat coming off of the cups. He craned his head out and pecked Zach on the cheek. Didn’t get coffee spilt all over him, so that was a win. Chris cleared his throat. “I made two cappuccinos, you can have them both if you like. I’m not too fussy about coffee, really, used to be but began to grow out of it once my palate had been pulverised by coffee beans and sugar for so long,”  
He was rambling. Zach looked amused. “I’d love one of your cappuccinos. Shall we have them here, before we go in?”

They sat next to each other on a stone wall. No talking, just watching the leaves being gathered then scattered by the wind. Chris told himself that his heart was beating because of all the caffeine. He turned to check out Zach, who was looking into the middle distance, a smile playing on his lips. He was wearing the dark navy jacket again, over an apple green Henley. Chris idly wondered if he moved here for a climate more suitable for wardrobe layering, then mentally slapped himself. Zach caught his grimace, and looked quizzically at him, so he made a show of finishing his coffee and smiling.

They wandered into the Sanctuary via the information centre, Zach casually directing them away from the guided tours and displays of fibreglass birds and straight out to a walking trail that circled the estate. It was a wetland area, so they walked on slightly elevated platforms. Zach pointed out landscape features, how the area had developed over thousands of years, and when Chris asked him, naming the birds. “What? It’s so cool that you know this.”  
“Just so you don’t think I spend my weekends in a hutch with binoculars, waiting for a Great Loon to show itself.”  
“Nah, you’re way more normal than birdwatchers. You’re watching bats with your night vision goggles.”  
“Damn right.”  
“Hey, ducks!”  
Zach gave him a look, but Chris stridently ignored it and bounded over to where a woman in a blue Eaton Estate shirt was showing off ducklings to a school group.

“C’mon, Quinto, tell me some duck facts.”  
A serious eyebrow number in reply, and then Zach bent down to the duckling hatch. One of the little fuzzballs waddled over to him. They moved surprisingly quickly. Zach lowered his right hand, palm up, and the bird bounded in. Carefully, Zach stood up, the duckling cradled to his chest, his inner left hand covering the right.  
“Hey, little bit, you know any duck facts? Because I am fresh out, but I want to impress this cute guy with one.”  
“He looks so light, like a dandelion.”  
“Weighs like nothing.”  
The duckling stood up, squeaked, and shook his fuzz out. Zach barked out a laugh. “Too much excitement, I think,”  
He carefully placed the baby bird back down on the ground, where it waddled back off to its siblings, and grimaced at the stain on his palm. Chris already had some wet wipes ready from the display stand, and stepped forward to clean him up. They were both smiling, at that point where they might tip into mutual laughter.  
“You have beautiful hands.”  
It rushed out of his mouth, ahead of his better thinking.  
Zach looked up at him quickly. Chris gulped, then realised the look was hot with something other than anger. He was squeezing the wipe in his fist, when Zach stepped into his space and silently reached out for both of Chris’s hands with his. Never breaking eye contact, he hold of Chris’s fist in his right hand, fingers smoothing down his wrist. Chris’s other hand was enclosed, palm against palm, between Zach’s two left hands. It felt shockingly intimate and sexy.

They stood like that for a full minute, breath ghosting between them. Then a wheezing horn sound and a fluttering at Chris’s ankle broke the moment up.  
“Mama duck is here.”  
“I think she’s jealous, Zach.”  
“She should be. Come back to mine.”  
Chris took a second to realise that he was apparently being propositioned while standing in a duck enclosure, and that the school party next to them were likely getting an eyeful. He really hoped he wasn’t going to develop an erotic association with ducks.  
“I really hope I’m not going to develop an erotic association with ducks.”  
Zach burst out laughing, but kept a hold on Chris’s hands, stroking his palms softly with those elegant thumbs.  
“I really hope not, too.”

Zach’s place was gorgeous, a small ranch house set back from the road down a winding path. They got inside and Chris felt shy, a little overwhelmed by the casual but arty décor. Zach offered to fix them drinks, and he had an actual drinks cabinet, it looked to be made of hand-carved wood. Chris had a tiny beer fridge in the shape of R2D2 that an ex-roommate had left behind and drank out of chipped coffee mugs that were going to get tossed out at work.

They settled on the porch with their drinks, Gimlets, for God’s sake – “This is the sort of thing people drink in Raymond Chandler novels.”  
“I have to live a few literary fantasies. The reality is not nearly as exiting.”  
Chris smiled wryly at that. He felt Zach look at him. “Speaking of…were you going to mention your writing to me?”  
“Ouch.”  
“What? It’s called a search engine. You’re a poet. A good one, from the two I managed to track down.”  
“Goddamn Woodward and Bernstein researching ninja journalist.”  
“I am not the only person you have dated who has looked up your poems.”  
“I wouldn’t be so sure. You and my Mom, maybe, have read them. Most of my friends either crack jokes about dirty limericks or are supportive in a, that’s nice, please don’t make me read them, sort-of-way.”  
“But it’s not like you were writing crazy conspiracy theories or, I don’t know, about your tentacle fantasies. Angry letters to the editor demanding VPs get neutered.”  
“I don’t think our date would have got quite so far if I’d done that.”  
“Probably not. Unless I was luring you here to bury you in the backyard for the good of the cause.”  
Zach’s tone was light, but Chris wasn’t sure how to navigate this. “It’s not very well-represented in the media in New England, um, I notice, I mean I don’t know how much shit you have to put up with, how many douches are out there. Plenty, I guess.”  
“Douches are universal, as far as I can tell, although there are certainly regional variants. But I’ve not found this area – I mean, no burning crosses on my front yard or anything. If anyone is writing neuter-positive editorials, I’ve missed them. It’s a college town, minds tend to be a little more open.”  
Chris nodded. “There was a huge campus party the year I got here when that nutbag senator’s birth registration bill was shot down. Not that you need a huge amount to convince college kids to party.”  
“True. But it’s little things like that which can get a few people thinking a bit, switch them on to abstract ideas and becoming politically aware. The older I get, the more I see that. I always had to be on top of that, when you’re a minority – VP, or “non-limited disability” as my driver’s licence says-”  
“Whoever came up with that deserves to be buried in a backyard, for what they did to the English language. Sorry, keep going.”  
“No, you’re right, zero tolerance policy for that. What I was saying, just that I never had the choice of not be politically aware, my parents read me the Bill of Rights instead of fairy tales, it’s just got to be part of your awareness because you will get pushed around, and ignorance isn’t a choice. What you do with that knowledge is up to you, it took me some time to realise that movements work best with people going in many different directions for the same cause. That is, fighting VP prejudice, gay rights, green issues, anything worth fighting for. All of it.”  
Chris wish he could think of something wise to say, but he just wanted Zach to keep talking.  
“I went hardcore for a while, one summer. Moved into a squat run by a separatist group, thought that implies that they were organised. It was…interesting. There was an anarchist, a freetarian, an actual pimp with an actual limp, bunch of horny teenage punk boys, some people crazy or broken by the world and not by their bodies. I slept through the days, in a tepee in a parking lot, then stayed up all night talking revolution and drinking rocket fuel. The parties we threw were so epic, straights turned up.”  
Chris didn’t have to check what Zach meant by ‘straights’. “Which led to fights, you can imagine – if you treat us like a freakshow, we’ll terrorise you right back.”  
“Is that what it felt like?”  
“Terrorism?”  
“A freakshow. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that,”  
“Chris, I used the word. It’s a good question. It never did when I was in that place. Sure, though, it has. It’s been part of my life forever. You can smell it on people, the noxious attitude, the morbidity of seeing something different. How you can be a five year old boy walking the dog with his parents, and also be a monster.”  
“Jesus. That’s awful.”  
“It is. I had great parents, but it’s not something that can be undone. Chanting Gabba-gabba-hey for hours, high as a kite, with a bunch of other monsters in a derelict warehouse, that helped. But leaving there to go to school and doing work I’m passionate about did, too. There’s lots of ways through. Art, education, love. As well as rallies. And the occasional riot,”  
“Were you in North Side St? 1999? Oh my god, Zach, you were!”  
“Part of the planning committee for the original flashmob, which like you know descended into a complete clusterfuck. This guy Ruthless, he brought a chainsaw out of nowhere, whipped his dick out from his cargos and began running through the streets. It was the most incredible night. I was scared shitless. I felt alive, like I was plugged directly into a generator.  
“My friend Maxine, she was there, too, got knocked about by the cops after we lost track of each other. I never really believed anything would save Maxi, she was always fragile, looked like a silent movie actress. But she’s living in Arizona now, founded an art colony there. She sends me these tiny slivers of hand painted pottery.”  
He stood up, indicated that Chris follow him. It's dusk, the rooms inside are mostly in shadows. Zach leads him to a white bowl on a shelf. Looking inside, Chris can see colours dancing along arrowheads and peninsulas. He thinks about old maps, rockpools, nebulas.

He doesn’t want to talk, wants to stay there as the light fades out and leaves them alone with each other.

Zach brushes Chris’s side, turning towards him slowly. Then they were fumbling, Chris trying to get Zach's lips full on in the half-light. He finally kisses him fully, staggering into perfection, just lips, heat, wetness. Zach was pulling him in by his shoulders, and his waist - _oh my Holiest God_ , that's it. Chris took handfuls of the shirt in front of him, hummed his wholehearted approval and Zach moved his tongue into his mouth.

They were both noisy, making obscene noises into each other’s mouth like amateurish teenagers. Zach moved to bite at Chris’s chin, angling his head with a hand while two others rubbed at his back. Their legs were locked together and they were almost standing on each other’s feet. Chris felt dizzy with the mix of sensation, as Zach sucked and nipped at his neck.  
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Zach, wait, wait,”  
One of Zach’s hands pauses halfway down the back of Chris’s pants, another stills over his zipper. The hand on his chin tips his face up to look at concerned eyes.  
“What’s wrong? Too fast?”  
“I’m just – we better get horizontal soon, tonight, promise?”  
Chris couldn’t bear the idea of having to walk out of here on just a kiss.  
“Really?” An eyebrow flares. “This doing that much for you?”  
The two hands in his pants start grinding on him, while the fingers on his chin get slightly firmer.  
“Mmmf – yes! You have an unfair advantage.”  
It was like the drink had gone straight to his brain. But Zach didn’t cut it out, just looked extra wicked. “Seems pretty fair to me, Pine.”  
“Take this goddamn jacket off, I can barely feel you.”  
Zach complied, and Chris dared to raise his hands up to Zach’s left side, nestling his fingers in the warm gap between his two arm joints. He moaned with satisfaction.  
“Feels so good, Chris.”  
“Off, shirt off, I want to see,”  
He was whining, he knew. His fingers plucked over the fabric at the muscles in Zach’s arms.  
“But then I have to let you go. Oh, but you like my arms so much, huh?”  
Zach was being playful, but when Chris heard that as those hands left his body, a primitive part of his brain freaked out and shot a major alarm to his nervous system. He froze on the spot. “No, I didn’t mean – I’m not a – I’m so sorry, Zach,”  
Chris stepped away from the hot aura around Zach. Humiliation burned through him. Zach was standing there, shirt off, and Chris had squeaked out an apology, for God’s sake. He felt so pathetic.  
“Chris? Um, what just happened?”  
“I just want you to know into you, for your mind, and I’m not – I mean, you can’t indict someone for every single thing they jerk off to! Jesus, that’s not fair.”  
“You’ve jerked off to – what, wait-”  
Suddenly Zach gets it. “VP stuff? Chris, et tu Brutus?”  
“Oh God, I’m sorry, I know,”  
Chris reeled further back, hands in his hair, feeling like he was a teen and his parents had found his weed stash, not sure how his stupid mouth had got him in to this much trouble.  
“You get off on VP porn?”  
“No! Well. I was a horny teenager with a modem once, I’m not proud, don’t laugh…”  
“Have you seen ‘Two Hot Two Handles’? Ruthless makes a cameo during the orgy scene,”  
Zach’s laughing, and it’s not a laugh of contempt and bitterness. Chris turns to him. “I don’t want you thinking I’m some devo,”  
“Chris, have you looked in a mirror? Would I care? No, no – I’m kidding, get your fine ass back here. Seriously, I don’t care. Don’t. Care.”  
“How did you get this out of me?”  
Zach wrapped his arms all around him. “Didn’t realise I was activating your confession mode, is it always turned on by your dick?”  
Chris sags into Zach’s shoulder, wanting to hide his blush. Mutters into the shirt fabric, “Like a goddamn lie detector.”  
“How intriguing. Let me try it out. Are you wondering if I have two handles?”  
Chris pokes him in the ribs, sharply, instead of talking.  
“Hey! Maybe that was an invite for you to find out?”  
“Maybe I’m a mature human being who’s waiting for a better line that ‘Wanna know if I have two handles’, I mean, goddamn Zach, that’s terrible.”  
“You can respect me, you can respect all over meeeee-”  
Chris nipped at his earlobe. “Asshole. I’ll write to the Mt. Zion Chronicle about your perpetration of unfair stereotypes.”  
“How about penetration of hopelessly adorable barista poets, instead?”  
“Does your dick activate some sort of cheesy porn dialogue?”  
“Hmm, maybe it does when you get close to it. And you are very close. I’m going to take you to bed now, as per your previous request.”

Chris willingly let himself be led forward by three hands.  
In the bedroom, Zach turned a light on, and smiled at Chris, who flushed with pleasure. He’d get to see everything, and Zach wanted to look at him. Then his rational thoughts pretty much disappeared as Zach crawled over him on the bed, propped up on one hand as the other two got rid of his clothes. They kissed and pulled at each other, still laughing. Chris felt a fire in his belly, which went supernova as he got to run his hands properly over Zach’s heavily muscled back, slim waist and hips, and down to his ass. Zach was arched over him, mouth over one of Chris’s nipples, which was currently enjoying the greatest sensation it had known in its lifetime.  
“You’re perfect, just perfect,”  
The sensation – teeth, lips, tongue – on his chest paused. No no no. “I snore. I have a missing toenail on my right foot. I can never remember phone numbers.”  
“Jesus, Zach, you’re perfect, when you don’t stop so don’t fucking stop – oh God,”  
Chris felt the smile on his chest. He thought it was a brand new one to him. He wondered how many he would see tonight.

Chris got pushed up to the headboard and got to feel one hand on his chest, flicking a nipple, another holding his hipbone just where the skin was thinnest and most sensitive, and another curling over his balls. He opened his mouth to verbally express his pleasure at this situation, but all that came out were guttural groans. They got louder when that mouth was lowered over his cockhead, and Chris pulled up his head to lock eyes with Zach as he sucked his cheeks and deepthroated him.  
The hand playing with his balls moved and a finger slid up the side of Chris’s cock, where Zach’s head was bobbing up and down. Slick with saliva, Chris could feel the digit move down, and he spread his legs wider in invitation.

As Zach moved his finger over his pucker, Chris grunted out a warning. He ached to feel Zach inside him, but he could already feel the white heat at the base of his spine building, about to shoot. Zach didn’t pull off, sucked him through it, messily and loudly. It was about the most beautiful thing Chris had ever seen.

He sunk back into the bed, boneless, with just enough energy to tug at Zach’s shoulder. “Come here,”  
A smirk. “As you wish.”  
“Kiss me, smart ass.”  
Opening his mouth over Chris’s, Zach shared his taste with him, their tongues tangling. It was a sloppy kiss, and Chris could feel Zach’s cock – singular – against his hipbone. He reached down for it, feeling Zach’s blood pulse. Another hand joined his, and their fingers interlocked as their eyes met.  
“So blue.”  
Zach was talking to him, nonsense phrases, panting, and then with a low, yearning sound he came. Chris lifted Zach’s hand up to lick it clean.

The next day Chris woke at daybreak, morning light pouring in the windows. He was encircled by three arms, a leg between his, Zach’s face scrunched up against his shoulder. Chris waited, but couldn’t detect any snoring.

Perfect, he thought. Completely perfect.

 


End file.
